New ESSAYS QUITE OFTENNEW STORIES AND SONGSEVERY now and then

This was Megan, giving her critique of the song “No Side to Fall In,” by the Raincoats. I love this song in a big way, and I was sharing it with her.

She was silent for a moment.

“Uh…you like that?” she asked, tactfully.

“Yeah,” I said. “There were this cultish band that formed in the late 70s. Johnny Rotten thought they were great.”

“Okay,” Megan said. “That uh…well, okay then.”

Megan then sort of pursed her lips together and made a sort of “who” sound as if to say…well, as if to say “well…okay, then.”

Look, they say that if two people agree on everything, then one of them is unnecessary. Megan and I agree on many key things, and share many similar tastes in music. It would appear that, with The Raincoats, we have, shall we say, a difference of opinion.

I can’t help it, I love the song “No Side to Fall In.” If a group of cats who all lived with artists got together and formed a band, I think they’d sound a lot like The Raincoats. No, their musicianship wouldn’t be that great, but there would be a charm to their music that would be infectious.

At least it would be infectious to me. Megan would no doubt politely listen—after my having dragged her to a club to hear them—and, not wanting to hurt my feelings, would give me a thin, strained, diplomatic, smile, and say “they’re, uh…good. Catchy. Very cute cats.”

“I know,” I’d say, completely oblivious to the fact that Megan would prefer to listen to something else (okay, anything else). “I mean, isn’t it awesome the way that the drummer kind of randomly hits this cymbals at the beginning of the song?”

“Yeah,” Megan would say, by now forced to use the adjective that all people in such positions must finally use. “They’re, uh…interesting. Yeah, that’s it…interesting.”

I could see me enthusiastically going up to these cats after the show, congratulating them.

“You guys were great,” I would say.

“Yeah,” Megan would say, not wanting to be in such an awkward position, “you guys were, uh…you know, interesting.”

And so it goes, and so it shall go. There is simply something that I absolutely love that Megan absolutely…does not love.

At this point, my mind takes the whole thing with the band of cats further. I imagine Megan’s cat Piper, who has a face that looks like it belongs on the cover of an early 1980s New Wave album, forming a band with other cats in the neighborhood, none of whom play their instruments particularly well.

I imagine them practicing in the basement, the noise carrying up into Megan study. I imagine myself smiling, while Megan has her fingers in her ears.

“They sound just like The Raincoats,” I’d say.

“Yes,” Megan would say, “they do.”

“We should go see them when they’re ready to play somewhere,” I’d say.

“I already promised them we would,” Megan would say. “She is my cat you know. It kind of goes with the territory.”

“I can’t wait,” I’d say.

“I…can,” Megan would say.

“Okay,” we’d hear Piper say in the cheap microphone, which would generate a great deal of feedback, “Derek just turned me onto this amazing band called The Raincoats. I think we should play this song called ‘No Side to Fall In.”